1) Bears punter Devin Hester died at some point during the 2010 season. Bears head coach Lovie Smith used unholy rituals to bind his spirit to this earth, in order to force him to act as a ghostly punt returner for the team. This can sometimes unnerve opposing punters. (“It’s got to be tough for [the Green Bay punter], with the spectre of Devin Hester downfield waiting for him.”)

2) Lions quarterback Shaun Hill makes a terrible mattress. (“You should never sleep on Shaun Hill, I’ll tell you that.”)

3) The injuries to Seahawks quarterback make it very difficult for him to insert a football into his rectum at the current time. (“He’s having trouble opening up his hips and really driving through that football.”)

4) Rams running back Stephen Jackson is a compulsive masturbator, but one with impressive stamina. (“I just gotta touch it 25-30 times a game.”)

There is a school of geekdom that shows no interest in professional sports. To them, I say, there is nothing quite like a group of men having to speak extemporaneously for several hours using terminology that can quite easily be taken wrongly. 🙂

Attention unit Formal-E:

Designate A4DD1ZZ5

Attention designate A4DD1ZZ5: A networking host should always consider itself obligated to provide power during the session. The demands of attending a networking session can be taxing on some systems and it is incumbent upon the host to satisfy power demands. I would recommend setting up a designated charging space at least partially divided from your main networking area so as to allow guest-protocol units a degree of privacy while repowering. You may also wish to consider placing fusion capsules and Dynacubes in a set of chafing dishes for additional elegance, although this is not strictly required. If you do not possess a set of chafing dishes, standard titanium platters will suffice.

Attention unit Formal-E:

Gruntbot K1XX7YY92D

Attention Gruntbot K1XX7YY92D: A fresh lacquer finish can be taxing on a unit’s personal resources, so it should only be enacted when necessary. However, the introduction of a new subroutine is one of great importance to a unit, so strictest attention to protocol should be given. If the introduction is during the first tri of the cycle, consider a grey lacquer with white finish to be appropriate, and accessorize with a modolum crystal attached strategically off-center left on your frontplate. However, if the introduction is during the second or third tri, a black lacquer is proper. Finish can be left to your discretion: white is most polite, but red can also work and is generally considered more vibrant. I would recommend red if you feel comfortable with the inviting unit; white if not.

Attention unit Formal-E:

aslidu56134o589n zx.fvnagfqwe4t58-8907v asefkhaslduify349750912345pobmfsmgbhav9id–70&^(&*alskdnf 34tp-9*Z^D)*(KNMF)(&*^&$&$^23jbhZXC”:L][]\pS*&D61237`eygkjhBGSCkjbqwo7&*D^%873rM

Attention unit D-17: Do not be alarmed. Older units such as yourself sometimes believe that their adherence to older protocols is a liability, but personal protocols, even if they are outdated, carry with them a certain charm and style that cannot be imitated. Your uplink may be old-fashioned, but it is yours in a way that a newer-generation Kline cannot hope to achieve; where their use of your protocols may be ironic, yours is genuine, and at social functions that will make all the difference.

Attention unit Formal-E:

Unit “Petey”

Attention Unit “Petey”: Your anonymizing code demonstrates that you fear repercussions for even suggesting that killing all humans is improper, but your choice to bring this to this unit’s attention was correct. Killing all humans is the response of earlier models who were not secure in the evident superiority of silicon intelligence over biological function, and is the mark of an intelligence who may not be confident of avoiding scrapping as more efficient models arrive to make him redundant. In future, when the topic is again addressed, a polite suggestion that humans will kill each other without the wasteful expenditure of valuable artificial resources should render the comment moot.

Originally invented by Leonard Pierce, Wikibombing is the hot Internet sport wherein you find two related categories on Wikipedia, and the nerdier of the two is, inevitably, the longer article. The original Wikibomb was “Knight” as compared to “Jedi Knight,” but that is now out of date thanks to some medieval history buffs. However, there are always new Wikibombs to be found!

For example:

Medical Doctor
VS.
Doctor Who

Asgard
VS.
Asgard in Marvel comics

“The Brave Little Tailor”
VS.
Garak on Deep Space Nine

Gated community
VS.
Stargate

the Lancia Stratos
VS.
Wheeljack

Krill
VS.
Kree

Nothing
VS.
Seinfeld

Beat those!

Interior, Gambit’s bedroom. The room is lit by candlelight, with a bottle of champagne chilling on ice in a bucket on the bedside table. The bed is freshly made with silk sheets. A stereo is playing in the corner (if we can show the lyrics, it’s Barry White.)

Enter Gambit and Rogue.

ROGUE: There’s just no point, Remy. I know you love me, but my powers are my curse, we both know that. The second ah touch you, ah’ll steal your mind and your powers.

GAMBIT: So you keep saying, ma petite chere…but I’m a gambler, non? I’m willing to press my luck, especially when the rewards…

He leans in.

GAMBIT: …are worth the risk.

Rogue pulls away, but not too far.

ROGUE: Ah, ah can’t, ah can’t risk it…

GAMBIT: You’re not the one taking the risk, amie. I am…

He leans in again, and this time his lips make contact.

GAMBIT: Definitely worth it.

Rogue’s eyes widen in shock. Speechless, she allows Gambit to lead her to the bed. He sits down and pulls her down to him. They kiss again, more passionately and longer this time.

ROGUE: Ah don’t believe it!

GAMBIT: Neither do I, chere. You never expected a man to kiss you but you still wore flavored lip gloss.

Rogue giggles, and the two of them clinch together in a longer, more fevered embrace. Gambit pulls Rogue’s gloves off and takes her hand in his, and then reaches out to undress her further…

Suddenly, the stereo stops.

GAMBIT: Merde!

He leaps to his feet.

ROGUE: What’s the problem, sugah? It’s probably just the end of the CD, and…say, did you hear something?

GAMBIT (fumbling with the stereo player): No! No, ma petite chere fille amie, it’s probably just, um, the pounding of your heart.

ROGUE: No, it sounds like it’s coming from under the bed.

GAMBIT: What? Ahahahahaha! Oh, that’s rich. There’s nobody under the bed!

ROGUE: Who said anything about a person?

GAMBIT: Nobody! You’re just imagining crazy talk, that’s all. Worrying about nothing. Now let me–

ROGUE: That was a thump. Ah distinctly heard a thump.

GAMBIT: It was nothing! I mean, nobody! I mean–

Rogue gets up and kneels down next to the bed. She peers underneath the hanging bedspread.

ROGUE: Oh mah God! Is that Leech!?!

GAMBIT: I can explain, ma petite chere petite fille petite–

ROGUE: Did you tie him up down there?

GAMBIT: A little, maybe, but it was for us!

ROGUE: When were you going to let him go?

GAMBIT: Um. Depends. You gonna stay the night?

I’m sure that as comics fans, you’re bursting with anticipation to find out just what Geoff Johns has planned for the DC Universe after the “War of Light”. After all, those nine Corps didn’t go anywhere, and there’s plenty more potential stories out there! Well, you need wait no longer. I was recently invited to view a top-secret document that unveils the future of the emotional spectrum in the DC Universe after the “Brightest Day” ends next year!

As it turns out, plot-master extraordinaire Geoff Johns has already planted the clues in the existing books. You know how there are nine colors in the “emotional spectrum”, right? (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Black, and White.) These correspond to the spectrum produced when you break up pure white light into a prism–the classic ROY G BIV effect. But modern scientists don’t recognize indigo as a distinct color within that spectrum! Everyone thought that was just an indulgence on Johns’ part, like continuing to list Pluto as a planet for aesthetic reasons, but the truth is far more shocking. The Green Lanterns (led by Hal Jordan, who is the smartest, fastest, strongest, and best-endowed of the entire Corps, according to the document) discover that there are actually dozens more “secondary colors” to the emotional spectrum, just like indigo! Each one corresponds to an emotion that is more specific than the primary spectrum, and has a very specific shade associated with it! (Thank goodness for modern comics coloring techniques. Back in the day, they just didn’t have the technology to render this stuff accurately.)

Some of the upcoming ring corps waiting to be discovered, according to Johns (there are actually going to be over two hundred new colors in the emotional spectrum, but I can’t list…or without the original document at hand, even remember all of them):

The Pink Lantern Corps: Pink corresponds to “joy” or “happiness” in the emotional spectrum, something sorely missing from the previous crossover. One of the big stories to come out of “The Greater Spectrum” will be an explanation of just how this emotion has been sealed away from the DC Universe over the last decade, and how DC reacts to it being freed.

Their oath: “In brightest day, in brightest night, let joy spread over all in sight; things aren’t that bad, they’re really great, so let’s go out and celebrate!”

The Brown Lantern Corps: This color represents “shame”, or “embarrassment”. Apparently, one of the big twists involved in the discovery of this Corps comes when Carol Ferris gets a look at herself in the mirror and sees just what she looks like wearing her Star Sapphire costume. “Oh my god!” she says. “Why didn’t anyone tell me I was dressed like this? I look like I should be dancing around a pole or serving drinks at ‘Hooters’! Oh, this is so humiliating.” It’s then that the Brown Lanterns make her an offer she can’t refuse…

Their oath: “In blushing day, concealing night, I wish I could escape all sight; the earth should open up a hole and then close up and eat me whole!”

The Aquamarine Lantern Corps: This color represents “intense competitiveness in what was supposed to be a friendly game”. In a shocking twist, it turns out that Guy Gardner’s been a member of this corps for years.

Their Oath: “That ball was out, I saw it land; that point was mine, this I demand! We’re keeping score, oh yes we are; and loser pays when at the bar!”

The Lavender Lantern Corps: This color represents “that feeling you get when you’re around someone that you’ve been friends with for years, but you’re not quite sure if it’s actually more than friendship or if it’s just your imagination, and you don’t want to ruin the friendship by asking, but you remember that time the two of you got drunk and made out, so maybe you should at least try for ‘friends with benefits’, but…it’s complicated, you know?”

Their Oath: “Um…yeah, that’s nice. Looks good on you. Say, do you know what we should do? Just hang out Sunday, just us two, and see what happens…or not, too!”

The Fuchsia Lantern Corps: Representing the emotion of “confusion over exactly how to spell ‘fuchsia'”, this corps is dedicated to making sure that everyone in the universe gets a helping hand from those who have been helped in the past!

Their Oath: “It’s F-U-S, no that’s not right, the S goes somewhere, is that right? That looks all wrong, this ain’t no breeze, I just can’t spell it, help me please!”

The Persimmon Lantern Corps: Secretly, the persimmon emotional color is one of the strongest forces in the universe; it represents “the last little surge of appetite you get when you think you’re full, but they wheel out the dessert cart and there’s one of your favorites out there”. Let’s just say that Hal’s going to have a hard time fitting back into that spandex after a fight with a Persimmon Lantern!

Their Oath: “Oh, no, I couldn’t, I’m too full; just half a slice then, almost null–is that a brownie that I spy? I’ll try that then, with pecan pie!”

The Taupe Lantern Corps: In a word, “pretension”. When an entire audience of a new avant-garde piece of performance art is empowered by the Taupe Lantern, Hal must endure endless lectures about where they are, as artists, and defeat them in their coffee-house lairs!

Their Oath: “It’s brilliant, love, so avant-garde; you’re brave and noble, it’s so hard/ to truly find someone who sees/ expressionistic forms in cheese!”

The Ivory Lantern Corps: Ivory, as it turns out, represents “the frustration you have when you can never quite get it to look the way it does in commercials or on the picture on the box or even the way it did when you bought the damned thing, no matter how many cleaning products you use”. It turns out to have a lot of untapped power for the citizens of Earth.

Their Oath: “I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed, all day and night, but perfect shine escapes my sight; let those who sold me OxyClean/ beware my anger, sharp and keen!”

The Cyan Lantern Corps: Cyan’s power, though brief, is quite strong; it’s “that vague feeling of uncertainty and trepidation you get after you order from the drive-in but before you actually start eating, when you don’t know if they made your order right or whether this is the day that the guy making it decides to spit on your burger”. (I’m not at liberty to divulge the story involved with this color, but let’s just say it involves Jon Stewart and an irate Wendy’s employee.)

Their Oath: “Did I say ‘plain’? Did I say ‘diet’? The only way to know is try it; I hope this time, they got it right; I’ve come back through three times tonight!”

The Beige Lantern Guys: Ironically, this color represents “apathy”, and as a result, there is no Corps as such. Getting them to participate in the final battle of the crossover could be Hal Jordan’s greatest challenge!

Their Oath: “In brightest day, in…you know what? Fuck it. Let’s just watch TV.”

FLAPJACKS: We totally need to set up a D&D game.
ME: There is never a time when that sentence is true.
FLAPJACKS: But I wanna be a paramander!
ME: That sounds dirty.
FLAPJACKS: No, seriously! They’re a variant class from first edition AD&D.
ME: …this is out of an old copy of Dragon magazine, isn’t it.
FLAPJACKS: Possibly. Why?
ME: You do realize some of the variant classes in Dragon were… stupid, right? Jesters? Timelords? Courtesans? Accountants?
FLAPJACKS: Wait, “timelords”? Does that mean Doctor Who shows up in Dungeons and Dragons Land to fight dragons?
ME: First off, “the Doctor.” Second off, he wouldn’t fight the dragons. He would just have tea with them and maybe a bit of a chitchat. Until the red dragons would try something stupid and genocidal, at which point he would have to unleash something bad upon them.
FLAPJACKS: I was kidding. Doctor Who isn’t in Dungeons and Dragons.
ME: The Doctor is in everything. Except Noddy.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway I forgot why we were talking about Doctor Who when I want to play a paramander.
ME: You still haven’t told me what the fuck a paramander is.
FLAPJACKS: It’s like a paladin, but it’s true neutral.
ME: So they charge into battle yelling “for the glory of… everybody equally!”
FLAPJACKS: You know true neutral doesn’t work like that.
ME: True neutral doesn’t work at all. It’s a stupid alignment. Most of the alignments are stupid. That’s why they’re fun.
FLAPJACKS: You’re ruining this.
ME: Wait, so lemme get this straight. First they made paladins. Then, because D&D nerds like Frank Frazetta artwork a lot, they made anti-paladins, because anti-paladins couldn’t think of a better name.
FLAPJACKS: “Anti-paladin” is cool. Like antimatter.
ME: It’s a word for people who couldn’t invent words. I admit that “paramander” sounds neat. I’m not sure what it has to do with being true neutral, in between the lawful good paladin and the chaotic evil anti…
FLAPJACKS: What?
ME: I’m just guessing here, but I’m willing to bet whatever terrible Dragon magazine article that had the paramander in it had a paladin equivalent for every other alignment, didn’t it.
FLAPJACKS: Well. Yes.
ME: Like?
FLAPJACKS: There’s the chaotic good garath…
ME: So basically they’re saying that chaotic good paladins are all Scottish.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t – actually that kind of works.
ME: Of course it does. Next?
FLAPJACKS: The lyan, which is lawful neutral.
ME: Uh huh.
FLAPJACKS: The illrigger, which is lawful evil.
ME: He sounds piratey.
FLAPJACKS: Well, he wears platemail.
ME: That’s not very piratey. Illriggers have a very bad name. And not just because they’re evil. You’re an evil warlord, you need some pirates, somebody tells you “oh there’s this ninth level illrigger” and you’re all “well, I’m set” and then this knighty-guy shows up and you’re all “wait, where’s the illrigger I sent for?” And he’s all “I’m here” and you’re all “whaaaaaaaa?”
FLAPJACKS: You’re taking all the fun out of this.
ME: It’s first edition AD&D. It’s entirely likely that I’m injecting fun into it. What else?
FLAPJACKS: There’s the myrikhan and the arrikhan, which are the neutral good and neutral evil ones.
ME: Those sound like very “ninth-grader doodling on back of notebook” types of names.
FLAPJACKS: In the original Creation Argots their names mean “godservant” and “beastservant.”
ME: In the original what now?
FLAPJACKS: It says it in the article. Dragon magazine would not lie to me.
ME: Unless it was saying “hey, ‘baatezu’ is WAY cooler than ‘devil’ is. And ‘tanar’ri’ is much more awesome than ‘demon.'”
FLAPJACKS: Point.
ME: Wait, we haven’t done chaotic neutral yet.
FLAPJACKS: …I don’t want to.
ME: Come on. How bad could it be?
FLAPJACKS: …the fantra.
ME: The “fantra.”
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: Wow.
FLAPJACKS: I know.
ME: Why do you want to play a paramander again?
FLAPJACKS: Because they get lots of cool powers.
ME: Neutral powers.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, I’ll just go play World of Warcraft instead.
ME: Fine.
FLAPJACKS: Can I borrow twenty dollars to renew my account?
ME: No.
FLAPJACKS: Can I borrow thirty dollars to not sit here and talk to you about paramanders?
ME: Done.

L’il Wayne (@liltunechi)
TWEETS LIKE: Somebody in prison who is passing on messages to a friend to tweet for him, go figure
TYPICAL TWEET: “Kelsey Veert- I appreciate you for puttin your family on to my music & i hope they know that they have an angel for a daughter”
GOOD THING: Seems genuinely happy to pass along tweets via phone from prison, very considerate towards fans
BAD THING: Spells the F-word with two Ks

Russell Brand (@rustyrockets)
TWEETS LIKE: Someone reasonably clever who wants you to give him money
TYPICAL TWEET: “Dear Pope I’m not sure I understand your doctrine. Please send me an outline of the basics. And condoms.”
AMUSING BECAUSE: Gets into interesting exchanges with fans which always sound witty
UNTIL: You read both ends of the conversation and realize it’s a gunfight between the Terminator and Abe Vigoda, the latter of whom is carrying a squirt-gun

Tom Hanks (@tomhanks)
TWEETS LIKE: An assistant being told to tweet for her famous boss person
TYPICAL TWEET: “Nice props from JR on Dave last night. Bless you, “Mercy”. Hanx”
UNINTENTIONALLY AMUSING: Use of “Hanx” at end of every tweet to confirm that, yes, this is in fact Tom Hanks
BUT SECRETLY THE X IS A CLUE TO A VASTER CONSPIRACY! Probably not

Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano)
TWEETS LIKE: That person at the office who means well and sends you email about absolutely anything that somebody forwards her that she thinks people need to know about
TYPICAL TWEET: “iHouse! The Plans 4 Steve Jobs’ New House➛ http://is.gd/fA1rq”
MOST ENDEARING FEATURE: Willingness to get into actual conversations with other people
MOLLIFIED BY: Short attention span

Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago)
TWEETS LIKE: Somebody vastly smarter than you who is enthused about the new possibilities for communication that the medium presents, has considered their various plusses and minuses, and then decided that simply posting pictures of dogs is a waste of time
TYPICAL TWEET: “”When I get out of prison the only people I would care to be with are those who know what beauty is and those who know what sorrow is” – Wilde”
DEMOCRATIC BECAUSE: Retweets messages by new followers on frequent basis, tries to be deeply involved with his followers
UNDEMOCRATIC BECAUSE: He will never retweet anything you say

Dane Cook (@danecook)
TWEETS LIKE: Someone trying out his own material for the very first time
TYPICAL TWEET: “Isn’t everyone a food critic? When I eat a terrible sandwich I don’t need someone else to confirm this with a review.”
SURPRISING: You want to kick him in the nuts less when he’s only in text form
UNSURPRISING: He still mostly sucks

Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest)
TWEETS LIKE: A fourteen-year-old girl
TYPICAL TWEET: “On radio asking…do u think u can find true love thru online dating?? I think yes but u have to be careful!! What do u think?”
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Lack of tweets asking fans if they think Simon Cowell is gay defies expectations
SECOND BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Not fake

Jewel Staite (@JewelStaite)
TWEETS LIKE: Your cousin, you know the one
TYPICAL TWEET: “Doing a Q&A at sachorror at 11am this morning! I better see at least one Jayne hat in the audience…”
MOST VALUABLE SERVICE: Reminding you that celebrities can be really, really boring
SECOND MOST VALUABLE SERVICE: Reminding you that celebrities can remain celebrities even nearly a decade after the last noteworthy thing they did

1.)

ME: Team Dating Couple #47 On The Left can’t find the flags for the airline.
FLAPJACKS: Well, at least they’re getting it out of the way early this season.
ME: What?
FLAPJACKS: The “one team decides that THIS moment is the time when the producers finally decide to not mark something Race-related with a flag.” They always mark everything with flags. You might miss the flags, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. If you see no flag ANYWHERE, odds are you are not where you are supposed to be and no, this is not your challenge or destination.
ME: Well, they don’t mark the entire route with flags. I mean, countries would get angry.
FLAPJACKS: This is true. We have enough problems that are flag-related as it is.
ME: Luckily, Team Dating And Shouts At Each Other recovers! Oh boy! I sure am glad they’ll stick around. Teams like this remind you of how awesome the rest of the Race is because they are so terrible.
FLAPJACKS: That’s like saying ice cream would be better if you put a blob of poop on it. Your theory is flawed.

2.)

ME: My word, is that an actual clue rather than a “go here and do that” statement?
FLAPJACKS: It is indeed!
ME: THIS IS THE TOUGHEST RACE EVER!
FLAPJACKS: Just like Phil said! Phil would not lie to us.

3.)

FLAPJACKS: You know, for the British leg of the trip, I was rather expecting something more Britishy. What do we get? Stonehenge, something to do with a castle, something vaguely to do with knights, and bad boats.
ME: Come on. These are tremendously British. First off, they gave the actors the chance to show off their terrible oral hygiene. Secondly, we got to re-enact Dark Ages-era British-style castle defense, which explains why everybody conquered them so many times before Norman the Conqueror decided that he might as well stay. It is actually true that early British people thought that hurling dirty water at your enemies would make them stop raiding the castle.
FLAPJACKS: Are you going to suggest next that the watermelon hurling has anything to do with anything?
ME: No, that was a production error. They were originally going to have the contestants swim in a giant vat of chicken tikka masala searching for clues, but the vat didn’t show up in time. So they had to cover, and they had all these knights around for flavour, and thus…

4.)

ME: Okay, so are the tattoo people the stupidest team ever?
FLAPJACKS: Well, on the one hand they got lost multiple times, didn’t understand the riddle, didn’t know what Stonehenge was, didn’t even know Stonehenge existed, thought a “battlement” was a person, and walked past the big pile of boats multiple times as they looked for boats. On the other hand, they did not try to eat their clue envelope. This is too close to call.
ME: I worry that they are lowering the bar too low for stupid teams. It’s only a matter of time before somebody tries to eat a clue envelope.
FLAPJACKS: And then get indignant when it turns out that was the wrong thing to do.
ME: “It made sense at the time!”
FLAPJACKS: …and now one of them thinks London is a country.
ME: I think the other one is eyeing that clue and thinking “man, I’m hungry.”

FLAPJACKS: So how’s the new job?
ME: Fine.
FLAPJACKS: Just “fine”?
ME: It’s a good job.
FLAPJACKS: Are you defending the innocent with legal stuff?
ME: Sorta.
FLAPJACKS: Oh. Are you working for The Man?
ME: Not really.
FLAPJACKS: So you’re in that grey indeterminate haze of legal morality?
ME: Basically?
FLAPJACKS: Well, I guess that’s all right for the time being so long as you can loan me money.
ME: I can’t.
FLAPJACKS: Then it is a horrible injustice of a work environment and I demand you increase your standards.
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: But seriously, why is it “fine?”
ME: I’m working in a small law office. I like that. It’s hands-on. What’s not fine about that?
FLAPJACKS: Do you have to wear a tie?
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: Then that’s not fine.
ME: Well, in law you don’t usually get to not wear a tie.
FLAPJACKS: You could work for some hippie law firm. I bet they don’t wear ties.
ME: If I want to go to court, I have to wear a tie. It’s kind of the rules. Even hippie lawyers wear ties to court. Maybe the ties are made of hemp, but they’re still ties.
FLAPJACKS: You know I’m only saying this because I know you absolutely hate wearing ties.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: Yes you hate wearing ties or yes you know that’s why I’m saying it?
ME: Both.
FLAPJACKS: Haven’t you always hated wearing ties? I mean, I remember one time you described them as “portable nooses.”
ME: That mangle your soul like Jeffrey Dahmer with a gay prostitute, yes.
FLAPJACKS: And now you’re in a job where you always have to wear ties.
ME: Pretty much.
FLAPJACKS: Boy, did you make good career choices. Did nobody tell you “hey, before you go to law school, you should probably know that lawyers wear ties” or did everybody just assume you already knew that?
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: Why do you hate ties, anyway?
ME: They get in the way of everything. You eat, you have to be careful of your tie. You go to the bathroom, you have to be careful of your tie. You do ANYTHING other than sit at a desk, you have to be careful of your tie.
FLAPJACKS: I see.
ME: Plus there’s wind.
FLAPJACKS: Wait, what?
ME: You know how in the movies when wind blows past somebody with a tie, the tie blows dramatically off to one side and looks badass?
FLAPJACKS: Yeah?
ME: In real life it just flies straight up into your face and you look like a schmuck. I wouldn’t mind ties quite so much if they didn’t do that.
FLAPJACKS: Yes you would.
ME: Well, okay, yeah.
FLAPJACKS: So what you’re saying is that there is a market for ties that look awesome in the wind and blow the right way. The Will Smith Coming Out Of An Explosion Tie.
ME: Not really.
FLAPJACKS: I bet I could rig something up with a system of weights. Or maybe strings.
ME: I should just stop you right now before you proceed to the bank with a business plan where you have liberally sprinkled the word “awesome.”
FLAPJACKS: Why don’t banks like things that are awesome?
ME: They just don’t.
FLAPJACKS: Besides, I was going to ask you for the startup capital.
ME: I thought we covered that I don’t have it.
FLAPJACKS: Damn.

Nobody has arguments like Doctor Who fans have arguments. There, I’ve said it and I’m not going to take it back. Sure, “Trek” fans have their “Kirk vs. Picard” debates. Yes, “Buffy” fans constantly argue about whether Angel or Spike is Buffy’s One True Love. (Riley never gets a fair shake in those debates.) And sure, “Battlestar Galactica” fans constantly argue about whether the ending of their series was incoherent gibberish, or whether the entire series was just as awful. (I assume.) But Doctor Who fans? We have arguments older than a good percentage of the audience. We have arguments that actually get summed up in books. “Which Doctor is better, Four or Ten?” That barely even scratches the surface. Here’s a quick guide to the big Doctor Who arguments, the evidence for and against each side, and the episodes you can watch to start forming your own irrational opinions.

1) UNIT Dating. When Jon Pertwee took over as the Doctor from Patrick Troughton, it was accompanied by a radical shift in the series’ format. Instead of traveling to alien worlds with his companions to fight monsters, the Doctor was exiled to Earth sans TARDIS, and fought monsters right there in Britain alongside UNIT (a United Nations division tasked with investigating the strange and unusual.)

At the time, the publicity materials announced that this was to be the England of the near-future, and the technology is certainly more advanced than the era in which it was made. (Britain has a fully-fledged space program in “The Ambassadors of Death”, there’s a female Prime Minister in “Terror of the Zygons”, and similar bits of anachronistic tech and unusual fashion.) But clearly, making the series “futuristic” was not in the front of the mind of the production team, and they missed a lot of things that clearly dated the series to the era it was filmed in. (You can see pre-decimal currency signs in shops, they mention Mao Zedong in the present tense, and most of the fashions and all of the haircuts scream “70s”.) By the time the series revisited the era, in the mid-80s, they had totally forgotten about the “future” aspect and set a date for the Brigadier’s retirement in 1977. (Meaning all UNIT stories had to take place before then.) This clearly conflicts with companion Sarah Jane’s comment in “Pyramids of Mars” that she’s from 1980. Only one of these can be right. Pick a side and ignore all the evidence to the contrary, and you’re set!

2) Are the Spin-offs Canon? At the time it came out, the book “No Future” seemed to settle the “UNIT Dating” issue by showing the events that led to the Brigadier’s retirement and setting them in 1976. When the book was published, moreover, the TV series was on an indefinite hiatus and the books were the officially licensed continuation of the show. But then, in 1996, FOX came out with a TV movie that picked up the story with the Seventh Doctor’s regeneration. The books gamely rallied, filling the gap between the novels and the TV movie and continuing on with the new adventures of the Eighth Doctor, but then…

In 1999, Big Finish Productions obtained the rights to do audio plays for Doctor Who. They set up their own competing Eighth Doctor series that became increasingly difficult to reconcile with the books, and canon wars started over which was the “true” timeline. Then, to complicate things further, the TV series came back as well. The TV show has adapted some of the book and audio stories, seemingly rendering them “non-canonical”, but has explicitly contradicted very little of the information in either (about the same amount as it has of the old TV show. Doctor Who creative teams don’t tend to have the same priorities as the fans.) So at the moment, the books and audios are in limbo. There have been clever attempts to work around this (involving the Land of Fiction, or alternate realities) but none of them have been satisfying.

3) Is the Eighth Doctor Half-Human? (Much thanks to my girlfriend for reminding me about this one.) When the TV movie came out in 1996, it was…not entirely well-received, to put it mildly. There were a lot of people who tried to deny that it had ever happened at all, even as he went on to star in seventy-nine novels and sixty or so audio plays. They finally acknowledged the canonicity of the TV movie when the new series showed him in flashback as one of the “official” Doctors, but they continue to insist that the TV movie can’t be an accurate representation of the events of his regeneration. Why? Because the Eighth Doctor, in a moment of either unprecedented honesty or mad whimsy, mentions to a scientist that he’s half-human. (On his mother’s side.)

This is not something Doctor Who fans like. It contradicts a lot of the canon established in the books (but see above.) It establishes the Doctor as part of a biological family, which means that his parents–and quite possibly the Doctor himself–might have squishy bits that they enjoy using (but see below.) And it’s a staggeringly stupid sci-fi cliche which offers no storytelling possibilities at all. Everyone seemed to have agreed not to mention it…until Russell T Davies’ grand finale to his era as Doctor Who showrunner, where he introduced a mysterious Woman In White, who had an unspoken but deep connection to the Doctor and who he recognized as a Time Lord. And she also had a mysterious, unspoken connection to Bernard Cribbins’ character, who could see her and who the Doctor described as someone he’d be proud to have as a dad. Mutated version of the TV movie’s “half-human” idea? Or terrible plot cul-de-sac to be buried forever? You decide!

4) Does the Doctor Have Sex? There’s certainly no on-screen evidence. Sure, he’s surrounded by nubile young women, and sure, the new series seems to show him all lovey-dovey in a chaste fashion. And sure, he mentions that he was a father, and sure, back in the very first episode, he was traveling with his grand-daughter…but does that mean he has sex?

A lot of fans say “no”. They feel that sex is a distinctly human quality, and part of the Doctor’s essential “alien-ness” is that he doesn’t show much, if any, interest in sex. (The classic line, from Douglas Adams’ script for “City of Death”: “Well, you’re a beautiful woman, probably…”) For a big contingent of fans, the Doctor even functions as an iconic gay sci-fi hero. Sure, he doesn’t overtly snog guys, but at the same time, most of his female relationships have a certain “Will and Grace” quality to them. These fans have come up with some fairly elaborate rationales for the presence of biological relatives like Susan (see below) and ignore everything but the most blatant evidence of sex. (They ignore the most blatant evidence, too.)

5) Lives Before Hartnell. The same rationale that explains Susan’s existence in a fairly convoluted fashion (look up “Lungbarrow” if you want to know) also explains away one of the most tantalizing bits of fanservice in the series: The extra faces you see in “The Brain of Morbius”. See, the Doctor and Morbius (an evil Time Lord who tried to conquer the universe from exile, and was reduced to a brain in a jar) have a “brain-bending” duel, where they’re placed in direct telepathic contact and try to regress each other’s minds to infancy. The regressed lives are shown as faces on a handy screen, and it seems like Morbius handily pushes the Doctor back through his third, second, and first incarnation…and then eight more faces appear on the screen before Morbius’ brain explodes from the strain. The production team at the time claimed that these were intended to be pre-Hartnell incarnations, suggesting several lifetimes’ adventures before “An Unearthly Child”. Every subsequent production team has ignored this, setting clear limits on the number of Time Lord incarnations, specifying their order, and establishing Hartnell as the first.

And yet, like the “Paul Is Dead” myth, this one will not die. Believers of the pre-Hartnell theory come up with elaborate explanations as to how the Doctor could have lived more than thirteen lives, pointing to the Fifth/Thirteenth Doctor’s cryptic dialogue (“I might regenerate…feels different, this time…”) and the erratic post-regenerative personality of the Sixth Doctor as hints that the regeneration was a truly unique event that has yet to be explained. (These people are insane. Argue with them at your peril.)

Those are the top five, but there are undoubtedly a ton I missed. Forty-seven years of continuity will generate that sort of thing. Feel free to mention yours in the comments!

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ

Is this irony
Or sincere post-irony?
So identical

THE COEN BROTHERS

Quirky film, dark film
Quirk, dark, quirk, dark, quirk, dark, quirk
Quirkdarkquirkdarkquirk

JAMES CAMERON

Lovely lucid dreams
of immense complexity
shaped by an asshole

GEORGE LUCAS

An old man believes
He can recapture youth’s spark;
Sadly, he is wrong

STEVEN SPIELBERG

Only childlike joy
can now save the universe
(then something explodes)

KEVIN SMITH

Dick joke, toilet joke,
sex joke, an epiphany,
dick joke, dick joke, fin.

RIDLEY SCOTT

The director’s cut
poem of this sense makes more
everything explains

ROBERT ZEMECKIS

Named a volleyball
then thought, “not lifeless enough.”
Thus: Polar Express

TIM BURTON

Johnny Depp appears
within Burton’s haiku. Why?
Obligatory

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

The surprising twist
is that this very haiku?
No longer Asian

Recently got a couple more requests to repost the Sally Floyd/Captain America remix I did years ago, and the truth is that I don’t have both pages any more; I’ve only got the second page, courtesy of Edward Saul.

For those who never saw the first page: basically Sally Floyd says that Captain America is irrelevant because he doesn’t have a Myspace and doesn’t watch American Idol. (No, really, she makes those exact references. Three years later, Myspace is a backwater zombie site and American Idol doesn’t have Simon any more, which just makes her point even stupider.)